


Somebody to You

by kassandra_divina_trevelyan



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Broken Engagement, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24713242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kassandra_divina_trevelyan/pseuds/kassandra_divina_trevelyan
Summary: According to Helena Nepheros, Steve Rogers (her best friend and the secret love of her life) is the perfect guy with one fatal flaw: his on-off relationship with Sharon Carter. When Steve gets engaged to Sharon to stop the endless cycle of breakups, Helena fears she lost her chance to be with the person she wants for good. However, the engagement party becomes the battleground for long-held secrets to come out and people to come clean. Modern!AU, friends to lovers, angst with a happy ending
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 11





	Somebody to You

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @queen-kass-the-writer for more content   
> Drop a kudos/comment if you enjoyed

With the holiday season impending, Helena Nepheros always liked to tidying up while she decorated her cramped, one-bedroom apartment in the heart of bustling New York City. Adding some festive cheer to her life made the holiday season that much more exciting to spend with her friends. Helena picked up a feather duster to clean off the tables and shelves and nearby surfaces. 

She lovingly picked up a picture frame sitting on the small shelf mounted on her wall, slightly crooked but full of charm. It showed her with her best friend, Steve Rogers, and his rescue Border Collie pup Liberty; the picture was taken by a mutual friend on the day that Helena convinced him to adopt Liberty from the shelter. A smile lit up Helena’s face when thinking about Steve and her friends as they were the best things to happen to her when she moved back to New York from her home island of Eprana in the Mediterranean around two and a half years ago. 

She and Steve were as close as close can be. They met in the oddest fashion, but it made for the funniest memory afterward: 

_Helena had just moved to New York and was experiencing snow for the first time in her life. She went to the nearest park to her apartment, at the time, and decided that she planned on reading while enjoying the cold. She cleared off space on the bench and sat down in her multiple layers of clothes and adorable sunshine yellow knit beanie she just bought with the remainder of her first paycheck. She pulled out a book she rented from the library that she spent months waiting to read with sheer excitement and lost herself in the pages. The chill of the winter morning posed some new challenges, but Helena was all bundled up and warm. Her concentration was not broken by the cold, but the sensation of something smacking against the back of her head. She heard a distant chorus of “Nice going, Rogers!” from behind her and skittishly turned around to see a handsome, very apologetic looking man jogging up to her with a sheepish smile and rubbing the back of his neck._

_“Miss, I am terribly sorry about that. I threw a little too hard and missed my friend in our snowball war, making you an unintended casualty. Is there some way I can make it up to you?” He asked her, making Helena blink. She was so stunned by his baby blue eyes that she took longer to process his question._

_“Oh, I assumed it was an accident. But a snowball fight sounds fun… er, what might that consist of?” Helena asked, making it now her turn to be sheepish. She had never heard of a snowball fight, although the name seemed to be self-explanatory._

_“You’ve never had a snowball fight before?” He blinked, somewhat astonished._

_“Where I come from, we don’t get snow,” Helena explained, and the stranger tilted his head, picking up on and recognizing her foreign-sounding accent for the first time._

_“Well, that won’t do. You want to join mine, Miss-?” He inquired, trailing off when he realized his mistake of not asking the pretty stranger’s name. What would his mother say about his manners?_

_“Helena. Helena Nepheros.” Helena introduced sweetly as she marked the page with a bookmark as dog-earring the page was a cardinal sin in her eyes. She could resume her reading some other time._

_“Steve Rogers.” He gave her his name in return and barely waited for her to stuff her book into the protection of a bag before taking her hand and pulling her toward his friends. He had the most charming, boyish grin on his face. “Now, come on! I’ll let you get a free hit on me.”_

Helena gingerly set the picture frame back down and resumed her cleaning, but Steve lingered on her mind. The number of pictures she had of Steve (and Liberty) in her phone’s camera roll could fill an entire gallery. To describe Steve, Helena would say he was charming, incredibly handsome, a total gentleman—arguably the whole package and then some. Did Helena have a crush on Steve? No. She was stupidly in love with Steve. According to her friends, it was no secret to anyone with two eyes except Steve. But there was one fatal flaw with the perfect man: Steve had a girlfriend, sort of. 

Steve went through a back and forth, on and off relationship with Sharon Carter, a girl Helena worked with at one point. Helena didn’t know Sharon that well before she and Steve started dating around two years ago. All she knew is that one day Sharon was trying to befriend her, and the next, she had gotten her claws into Steve. The relationship was nothing short of toxic. Sharon had cheated on Steve, twice, with an ex of hers—some jackass named Brock. Not to mention, she had a manipulative and jealous streak over Steve about interacting with anyone who wasn’t her, which Helena topped that list. 

That caused friction between the friend group and Sharon, with Steve, uncomfortably stuck in the middle. There would be break-ups and the hope for moving on. Still, Sharon inevitably returned and manipulated Steve into reconciliation, and Steve, being the noble idiot he was, agreed to give her another chance. Through it all, Helena remained the supportive voice for Steve and his safe place, even though Sharon would rather see her gone. Helena believed that she would be happy for Steve, no matter who made him happy. 

From the makeshift coffee table, her phone buzzed and rang with the notification of an incoming call. Speaking of Steve, the ringtone was the one she chose for him: The US National Anthem. He was born on the Fourth of July and there was no reason not to make his ringtone that as it provided her too much pleasure. Helena plucked her phone up and answered the call. 

“Hello?” She cheerfully chirped out a greeting, not waiting for an awkward pause or anything. Things with Steve and her came easy, never dull or hard. The two of them were joined at the hip, inseparable when together—much to the amusement of Helena and his friends. 

“Hey Helena,” Steve greeted back, the smile in his voice transferring through the phone. What could Steve say? Despite the reason for his call, Helena’s optimism was infectious, and she could make just about anyone smile. That’s why she was one of his best friends. 

“How are you?” Helena inquired, seeing as they hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks. By their standards, that was a long time. She had been abnormally busy with work and clocking in some overtime hours for the extra pay. That would go toward Christmas gifts for the group and their usual Christmas morning brunch Helena whipped up. 

“Good. Hey, uh, Helena, I have some news to share with you,” Steve breezed past their usual greetings rather quickly and it seemed that he was nervous. Helena noticed that, but she held off for a cause of concern. She might be reading into things too much; she was always such a sensitive person. Sometimes she misread the situation and made more of something than they really were, getting all emotional. 

“Oh? Good news, I hope!” Helena commented, more trying to convince herself than she was talking to Steve. 

“You could say that,” Steve said but sounded rather unenthusiastic, and, at that moment, Helena’s instincts told her that something terrible might happen. Helena would never forget the next words that came from Steve’s side of the call. “I proposed to Sharon, she said yes. We’re getting married.” Helena’s world came to a sudden, screeching halt and she briefly wondered if her heart stopped beating while she processed those two sentences. 

“You are?” Helena felt like someone kicked all the wind out of her lungs, not knowing what else to say. “That’s- If you’re happy, then I am.” Helena lied breathlessly, churning out the same cliché she used a million times before like a broken record. Distress built up in her chest and she wondered if she was the first one he told? Did their friends know or was she going to be the bearer of bad news that might make the group chat implode? 

“Yeah. Listen, I got to go. Sharon’s calling me.” Steve remarked awkwardly when Helena picked up on some yelling in the background and her stomach twisted itself into knots. She knew what that meant, and she felt her heart plunge down into the ground, six feet under to be precise. Upon hearing Sharon’s name, Helena’s shoulder slumped with disappointment. She barely registered Steve’s “I’ll talk to you later” 

“Bye,” Helena whispered, but the other line buzzed at her, signaling that Steve hung up already, and Helena felt her eyes water. She brought the phone away from her quivering lips and felt her the phone slip from her hands and clatter onto the hardwood floors of her apartment. Tears ran down her flushed face and she numbly flopped onto the couch, unsure of what to do. So, she just laid there and cried. 

  
For Helena, the days passed in a painfully slow, dredging pace toward the engagement party Sharon insisted on throwing. Steve, more ambivalent about the party than against it, begrudgingly agreed to play nice and participate after Sharon gave him a mouthful about it. But Helena wasn’t alone in her shock, distaste, or general dissatisfaction of the new development in the never-ending bullshit cycle that was Steve and Sharon’s toxic relationship. Their mutual friends were less than pleased with Steve and shared a common disdain for Sharon’s domineering, manipulative behavior that Steve missed since he was too close.  
  
Helena nearly considered not going, not knowing if she could stomach the sight of Sharon hanging all over Steve or the engagement ring (which Helena assumed was the same one his mother held onto for him for years). Some of the friends agreed to boycott it should she choose not to go—mainly Clint and the girls. But Helena told them that Steve deserved them to be there and celebrate this momentous occasion, that her feelings mattered little in the grand scheme if he was truly happy with Sharon. So, there Helena stood, in the corner of the room with a small drink in hand and awkwardly alone as none of her friends had yet to show.  
  
She was in a room with Sharon’s friends, and family seeing as Steve’s mother had passed away, and he was an only child. Helena felt like a sore thumb, sticking out in her pale pink, lace dress compared to the sleek, cohesive matching outfits of Sharon’s friends and family. Apparently, she or the others didn’t get the memo that Sharon was looking for a black-tie event attire. The couple of the hour had yet to arrive, which acted as some solace.  
  
Out of their group, Wanda would be the next to arrive. She hustled inside with her coat for the wintry weather and immediately sought out Helena, wrapping her arm around her. Helena wholeheartedly embraced Wanda as she really needed a fucking hug. Wanda gave some of the best hugs out of anyone Helena knew, and she would fight with anyone who disagreed about that. With Wanda’s appearance, the others of the group came in not long after. Helena was embraced by Natasha, Clint, Tony, Sam, and Bucky when each of them arrived at the venue. All of them were reluctantly there before Steve was, as the groom-to-be. But it might be better that way as the group prepared for the worst-case scenarios and were here for Helena first and foremost.  
  
“How are you feeling?” Tony asked her when he pulled out of his hug, holding Helena at arms-length and studying her. Even when sad, she could never stop her radiance. She would outshine Sharon without even trying, which could be said about a lot of women. But Helena, she was a woman in a league of her own and a damn good friend. There had been plenty of examples where each of them leaned on her in their time of need and she carried them through without complaint or hesitation. Now that she needed them, they were gunning to return the favor and stand behind her.  
  
“I’m hanging in there,” Helena confessed, not knowing what else to say. She felt like tearing out her hair at the thought of Steve marrying Sharon? She would rather crawl over a mile of broken glass or stab herself through the heart in true Juliet fashion if that meant the marriage would be called off? Hell, Helena felt downright spiteful and hateful in her heart, and that frightened her more than anything else.  
  
“Consider us your shield from people tonight. Anyone bothers you, they’ll deal with us,” Bucky replied comfortingly, resting his hands on Helena’s shoulders so she couldn’t escape the sincere eyes. He might be Steve’s best friend from childhood, but that didn’t make him exempt from Bucky decking him for Helena. She had grown on him, and he considered her like the little sister he was duty-bound to protect from boys breaking her heart. As one of the others planned on chiming in with their comforting words or scathing thoughts on the matter, the doors opened to reveal that Steve had finally arrived—with Sharon on his arm.  
  
“There they are! Mr. and Mrs. Rogers to be!” Sharon’s mom, a petite woman already wine drunk at six in the evening by the way she swayed, exclaimed, and those gathered for the celebration cheered. Sharon grinned widely while the corners of Steve’s mouths barely lifted into a passive smile. Steve’s friend group were the only ones present apparently less than enthused with the festivities. Steve caught this when he saw them from across the room. His eyes jumped from friend to friend, landing on Helena last. She was dressed in a gown that was simply breathtaking but looking downright uncomfortable from the way she stared at the ground and shuffled in place. Steve knew his best friend; he knew when she wasn’t okay. When he tried to leave his fiancée’s side, Sharon dug her nails into his suit jacket’s arm. The gleeful smile didn’t drop, but she mumbled something to him under her breath, which got lost in the crowd: a warning, one for him to stay put or else.  
  
“Everyone! May I have your attention? I have several announcements to make!” Sharon clinked a fork she nabbed from the head table against a champagne glass to garner everyone’s attention. It managed to do the trick as all side conversations hushed, and the gathered crowd turned to face the bride-to-be. “I want to thank all of you for coming to celebrate my Snookums and me tonight. I could thank many people, and we’d be here all night, so we’ll save those for later. I wanted to discuss the reveal of my bridal party, starting with the maid of honor. So, this choice might come as a surprise to many of you. I chose her because she and I both love Steve, her maybe even more than I do: Helena.” Sharon announced with a sickeningly, fake friendly smile and the remark about their mutual love for Steve caused her close friends to share an overexaggerated laugh. Helena felt her stomach drop under the attention and the implication snidely was thrown out there by Sharon, who knew exactly she was doing.  
  
“I’m going to stab her,” Natasha snarled under her breath while warily eyeing the steak knives on the nearest table, determining the blade to be sufficient. After such a blatantly mocking remark like that, Natasha planned on going straight for the jugular.  
  
“Natasha, don’t,” Helena pleaded, trying to avoid making a scene. There was likely a way for her to be more embarrassed, but Helena had no intention of finding out how much worse it could get. She appreciated her friends’ eagerness to leap to her defense, really, she did. However, Helena was far too tired to find herself angry or upset anymore, just defeated.  
  
“No, please do. I would pay good money to see that,” Sam countered to agreements within the others of the group. Natasha’s death glare at the other women made them turn away to avoid the wrath brimming in her eyes. Most of the guests were tuned into Sharon’s speech that revolved around her more than her and Steve’s relationship, which wasn’t a surprise to Steve’s friends considering the painful history of the two. Sharon continued to ramble on about the rest of her bridal party and other nonsensical matters while Steve appeared increasingly uncomfortable. Eventually, she concluded her long-winded remarks with a cookie-cutter response of asking everyone to enjoy the festivities provided by her and Steve’s love. Helena felt unbearably sick and was doing her best not to stumble out of the room and lose her lunch in the back alley. Steve tried to head their way, but Sharon’s family swooped in around him and trapped him with his fiancée for who knows how long.  
  
“Helena, say the word, and I will make that bitch spill her vino all over that knock-off brand dress. Although getting her to twist her ankle might be more satisfying. Anything to stop the sweet home Alabama energy I’m getting since Sharon looks more like Steve’s cousin, not his fiancée.” Natasha commented darkly, and Helena knew Natasha meant it.  
  
“I think I just want to go home,” Helena said, sounding on the verge of tears and regretting coming. She severely underestimated what she could handle emotionally, that was on her. The whole group emphatically understood and planned on smuggling Helena out. With some quick thinking, Bucky and Sam walked over to the stage and pretended to bicker over the microphone as if they planned on giving a speech on Steve’s behalf. That drew the attention of the crowd onto them and their antics, which Sharon hated as she mentioned such to Steve in their presence before. Tony and Wanda ensured that no eyes were focused on Helena, especially not Steve’s, as Clint and Natasha escorted her out of the restaurant.  
  
Clint’s arms were wrapped around Helena in a warm, brotherly embrace while Natasha called for a cab to take Helena home. The evening was cold, and Helena shivered, thinking about the broken heating in her shitty apartment and the coldness of her loneliness. Wanda came out of the restaurant with her tan coat in her arms and flagged down Helena, giving it to her friend. She wouldn’t need it for the night and figured Helena should borrow it.

“Keep your head up, Helena. This- this is nothing. You are a radiant goddess worth much more than this pain and someone will see that, even if Steve doesn’t,” Wanda explained, not wanting to see her beautiful, kind-hearted friend cry over Steve being a clueless dumbass. He would kick himself if he knew how often he made her cry and the only reason he didn’t is that Helena begged them not to say anything. After tonight, however, that would change.  
  
“Wanda is absolutely right. I’m still considering letting Nat go kick Steve’s ass,” Clint chimed in, which made Helena laugh. She covered her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound. The tears were still in her eyes, but she appreciated the effort. Helena accepted the coat from Wanda to keep her warm while Natasha got off the phone with the taxi company.  
  
“Thank you,” Helena managed a small smile. Smiling in the face of emotionally traumatic moments could be considered her greatest talent. Her friends stayed with her until the taxi pulled up and Natasha confirmed the address with the driver.  
  
“Get home safe, please.” Natasha requested Helena as she opened the door for her friend and Helena slipped into the taxi’s back seat. Helena nodded; she had no plans of going anywhere to drown her sorrows when she could do that with some cheap box wine at home and the comfort of her solitude to emotionally crumble. Content with that answer, Natasha closed the door behind Helena and waited alongside Clint and Wanda. Helena offered her friends a solemn smile as the taxi pulled away from the curb’s side and headed off into the night, back toward Helena’s apartment. When her friends disappeared from view, Helena turned her head away from the window and stared at her lap as the first tear rolled down her cheek and fell into her lap.

Steve managed to disentangle himself from Sharon’s iron-clad, demanding grip after nearly thirty minutes of mindless conversation with her father about the stock market, his work as a firefighter, and ceremony details that made Steve want to swallow a Molotov cocktail. He slipped out of Sharon’s grasp with a half-hearted excuse before she could rope him back in and headed toward his friends. He assumed they were in the same spot he saw them last while he moved through the crowd of strangers to congratulations.

When he found his friends, still huddled at the edge of the room with drinks and sullen scowls, Steve immediately noticed Helena was missing. His first instinct was to guess she went to the bathroom, but the girls tended to go together whenever. Upon Steve’s approach, none of his friends walked up to greet him with the usual hugs or terms of endearment or smiles. The cold shoulder was duly noted and uncomfortable for Steve. He knew that they might be upset because of him and Sharon reconciling, but he was getting married. They should be happy for his… happiness.

“Where’s Helena?” Steve questioned, noticing the matching glares he received from his friends and never needed Helena’s friendly, always supportive face during this event. Parties like this were never really his style.

“She went home,” Bucky remarked flatly, the first to break the silence. The awkward tension between Steve and his friends mounted throughout the past couple of weeks since the engagement news broke. With Helena gone home and hurt by Steve for the last time, the others had no qualms about letting their feelings out. They were done holding back and making Helena suffer because Steve was so thick-skulled that it physically hurt.

“All thanks to your fiancée putting her on the spot,” Sam added that jibe for the sole purpose of the group’s collective disdain of Sharon to be heard and acknowledged by Steve. None of those who were still around were particularly shy about voicing their opinions on Sharon Carter or the way she sank her claws into Steve that rubbed all his friends the wrong way. Maybe she was a good person outside of the relationship, but she and Steve were not meant to be together.

“What?” Steve’s jaw dropped, not expecting that answer. She went home? Was it the maid of honor thing? Steve begged Sharon not to drop it on Helena unexpectedly because it would be unfair to push a spotlight on Helena, who typically shunned the limelight.  
“Steve, we have to be honest with you, man. Doing this, trying to work things out with Sharon is really fucked up. Especially for Helena.” Clint admitted, trying to ease into it with a gentler approach than some of the others would like. He understood their frustration firsthand as he felt the same way. But they would end up running in circles and get nowhere if Steve turned defensive.

“Think about it, Steve. We all have—at one point—voiced our disdain for Sharon Carter to you, some of us more than once. All of us. Except for Helena, who only wants to see you happy even if that means she isn’t.” Tony cryptically stated, earning some nods and murmurs of approval from the group. Helena was just that way where she would want someone’s happiness over her own, if this whole Steve-Sharon saga taught the group anything.

“Guys, what are you talking about?” Steve questioned, solemn and not wanting to dodge around the question. They all knew something he didn’t, and it involved Helena. Steve’s brow furrowed and he needed an answer.

“Do you know how many times she has cried over you, Steve?” Wanda question, growing increasingly frustrated by how everyone chose to dance around the point. Wanda, at the end of the day, would fight for Helena as she considered her a sister of experience. Helena deserved Steve to know the truth. When Steve couldn’t answer, Wanda’s patience snapped, and her anger seeped through, as evidenced by the return of her Sokovian accent. “Let me give you an answer: every time you go back to Sharon, she cries. Whenever she sees you hurt by something Sharon does, she cries. She cries over you for more than she should ever have to.” That one hurt. Steve listened to those words and replayed them over, his stomach lurching like that of a punch to the gut. He… He never knew that he made Helena cry.

“Plus, Sharon making her the maid of honor was fucked up beyond words. It was downright cruel after the way she has treated Helena. All the times that she threatened to end things with you because she never liked your friendship with Helena or she would bad-mouth Helena to her face all the time. She might make the whole thing seem like it was to mend bridges, but there is no act of kindness that could make what Sharon did to Helena, stabbing her in the back, okay, or put those two on good terms.” Natasha explained without betraying all of Helena’s trust, seeing as it was her story to tell Steve, should she decide to. Her decision is one the others would stand by. But Natasha knew what she would irk Steve about the decision to make Helena Sharon’s maid of honor. Steve hated bullies and something was far from innocent about the actions of Sharon’s friends and her public comments. “That, and the way her friends mockingly laughed at Helena after the announcement shows there was nothing benign about that decision.”

“She what?” Floored by that revelation, Steve found his head spinning. Her friends were laughing? Could that be a coincidence, or was there something deeper he was missing in the tension between his friends and Sharon? There were too many questions swirling around in his mind to ignore, meaning he needed answers. But those answers were going to come from the source, “Guys, I’m going to find Helena.” Steve declared before he headed out the door, going to Helena’s place to find out what was really going on.

Steve walked down the empty hallway of Helena’s apartment complex to her apartment. He had lost the tie of his suit and unbuttoned the suit jacket, freeing him from the restricted feeling that the monkey suit gave him. He ran his fingers through his hair and approached Helena’s door, knocking on it twice. He leaned against the doorframe, sucking in a shaky breath and stilling the urge to tap his foot while waiting. 

After some time, the door reluctantly opened to reveal Helena. Her mascara was smudged under her eyes, her lipstick furiously wiped off, and her face exhausted. In her hands, Steve noticed a familiar parchment with one of his sketches on it. It was one of Helena, swimming through lake waters and looking like a mythical water goddess than a woman. He drew the picture of her during a weekend vacation the friend group went on for his birthday. He didn’t realize she kept it all this time. 

“Steve, shouldn’t you be at your engagement party?” Helena questioned, barely keeping the bitterness from her voice. She blamed the alcohol’s influence on making her a little bolder than she really was. Completely sober Helena would be composed and not in her feelings. Leaning toward tipsy Helena lost a bit of her filter and she was all the way in her feelings. 

“Well, I noticed a certain someone went missing,” Steve replied, and Helena nodded. So, he came to collect her or did he come to escape from Sharon? Helena moved out of the doorway and he followed into the apartment, watching as she discarded the picture on the table and swapped it for a half-glass of box wine. It might be her second glass, but she was far from done. Helena tepidly sipped at her wine and her hand shook at Steve’s presence. She couldn’t even cry in peace now? Steve fixed the collar of his button-down while he witnessed Helena down her wine, concerned. “Helena, why did you leave?” Steve questioned, not sure if he wanted the answer, but he needed it. 

“I realized something while at the party tonight, Steve. Something I think you need to hear. What if, all my life, when I meet someone new, I can never fall for them because they aren’t you?” Helena mused and she caught Steve’s look of confusion, which broke her patience. After two years of silence, she finally reached her tipping point. Helena exasperatedly sighed, “Oh my god, Steve! can’t you tell I’m in love with you?” Helena announced, defeatedly throwing her hands up. The gig was up, the truth was out there. She had feelings for him early on, arguably since their meeting in the park. She loved him through it all from the time he got sick from eating too many hot dogs with Bucky and Sam to the wet t-shirt contest his workplace put on for charity, to last November when he grew out quite the impressive beard. Everything he did and everything he was, Helena adored it. 

“Helena I-” Steve choked on his tongue, eyes wide. He found himself speechless as he processed the information that Helena Nepheros, the most beautiful and kindhearted and talented woman he met, loved him? He had to be dreaming. There were so many things he could have said: _I love you too. I don’t want to marry Sharon. I want you to be the woman in my life._ Any of those would have worked, but like a moron, he said, “I don’t know what to say” 

“Then, maybe you should go back to your fiancée, the same one who used me to get to you.” Helena’s scathing reply came as a surprise to Steve and her; she was never the one for such strong words, such intent to hurt. But she was wounded, speaking from a place of pent-up anger and disappointment. She poured her heart out to him, laid her confession bare and at his feet while his answer felt so apathetic. 

“Sharon told me-” Steve stammered awkwardly, feeling slammed by the truth. The secretive war between his fiancée and his friends started to unravel before his eyes, revealing to Steve what was really going on… and things were not looking good for Sharon’s side. 

“I’m sure Sharon told you a lot of things, Steve, while conveniently leaving out the fact that she knew I had feelings for you. She ever tell you that? How she inserted herself into my life, asked me point blank how I felt about you, and still started dating you when I told her I had feelings for you?” Helena questioned, her face marred by hurt and her eyes shining with unshed tears. Helena lifted her finger to prod Steve, poke him in the chest, but her courage dissipated, and she dropped her hand. She glanced off to the side, feeling suddenly drained and shaking from anxiety. This is why she hated confrontation. Steve was stunned speechless by Helena’s admission laid bare about why she (and likely the group) detested Sharon, but Steve’s lack of response made Helena turn away and delve into silence. She had nothing to say, but the intent was clear: Helena wished to be alone. Steve stepped back, waiting for Helena to turn around, which she didn’t. Steve planned on fixing this, but there was something he needed to do first. 

So, Steve walked out of Helena’s apartment and closed the door behind him, praying to God she didn’t decide to lock it. He walked a little way down the hall when noticing a text from Clint that Sharon was harassing the group, dated a minute before. Steve dialed her number and put the phone up to his ear, prepared for one hell of a confrontation.

“Snookums! Where are you?” Sharon cooed exaggeratedly when she picked up and answered her end of the call. Steve could imagine the bat of her lashes and the little pout she liked to put on when she wanted something, the thought of which made him sick to his stomach. 

“Don’t ‘Snookums’ me, I know everything that went on between you and Helena,” Steve revealed through a growl. He could hear the atmosphere and conversations on Sharon’s side of the call, leading him to believe she put him on speakerphone. If she wanted to put herself on blast, he would give her a show. 

“Oh.” That answer was telling. Steve’s jaw clenched, his eyes shut, and his blood boiled as he tried to reign in the surge of emotions flooding him. Her awareness of her wrongdoing, not guilt, rang through that one-word response. 

“Oh? That’s all you have to say for yourself?” Steve demanded a reply, his voice turning uncharacteristically livid and raising significantly. He never raised his voice or snapped like that with Sharon before or around his friends, the later under the rarest of circumstances. But when it came to the truth coming out about it all, Steve could not keep from being mad. Mad at Sharon but, mostly, infuriated with himself. 

“Steve-” Sharon tried to explain it away or justify because that was all she ever did. Steve could never recall a single time she gave him a genuine apology from any of the times she cheated on him or got into altercations with his friends. There would be no chance for a spin to sway his mind because Steve was done. 

“I don’t want to hear it, Sharon. I am getting the ring back tomorrow because we are through for good.” Steve cut her off callously and he heard the verbal balking from Sharon on the other line. She stammered out his name or the various cheesy pet names he let her designate to him over the last two years by not putting his foot down. He shook his head and the disgust took root, “You thought you could get away with treating Helena like that? Well, then you were mistaken.” There was the appearance of murmurs and indistinguishable background noise during the aftermath of his words when Natasha’s voice, clear as day, cut in. 

“We’ll get it for you right now,” Natasha interrupted gleefully with the muffled sounds of Sharon squabbling with Wanda in the background, as evidenced by the full-fledged cursing in Sokovian that Steve recognized. 

“Rogers, if you don’t finally give Helena what she deserves-” Bucky jokingly threatened with some other risqué suggestions about how Steve should sweep Helena off her feet thrown in by the others in a jumble, unintelligible mess of voices. He heard more scuffling in the background, and he assumed there was a struggle for the phone. 

“Steve, we can work this out-!” Sharon snatched her phone back and pulled it off speakerphone, hoping to mitigate the argument which everyone in the vicinity overheard and spare herself the embarrassment of being dumped over a call. But her plea would be cut short as Steve hung up on her mid-sentence and the relief that followed felt so good when he acknowledged the finality of Sharon was gone from his life for good. There was only one thing left for him to do, something nearly two years in the making. 

As Steve mulled over what to say, the sound of shattered glass echoing out from Helena’s apartment chilled him to the bone and he sprinted back for the door, throwing it open in a panic. His heart raced until he spotted Helena, glancing down at the floor with soft sobs and a quivering lip. The quarter-filled wine glass she was drinking out of when he came in the first time shattered into splintered pieces on the floor and assaulted under the gentle torrent of Helena’s blackened tears. She lowered herself onto her knees, probably wanting to clean up the glass, but Steve marched back over to her and got on his knees to even out their heights. Steve turned her to face him with one hand around her waist and their eyes connected as he leaned in, taking her lips with his. The kiss was passionate and everything Helena wanted, cathartic to her tear-stained cheeks and smudged mascara. Helena pulled back from the kiss for air and a questioning glance, but that pause didn’t last long with Steve seeking her mouth again. They kissed in the dark of the apartment only lit by the glow of the fairy lights Helena kept up year-round. Helena could refuse when she caved in so fast, grabbing Steve by the lapels of his suit jacket. The two friends were not bound back by hesitation or fear anymore.

“Helena, the thought of walking away when you love me the way that I love you would be the biggest regret of my life, equal to me marrying Sharon. I know it took all of this to make me admit it and I am the absolute worst for hurting you. I can understand if you hate me or-” Steve was cut off by Helena kissing him again like she needed his lips on hers to live. She knotted her fingers in Steve’s hair and let her lips do all the talking that her brain failed to do. _I could never hate you_ , her kiss seemed to say. Steve raggedly whispered her name while trying to catch his breath in between. 

“Oh, I made such a mess.” Helena gasped when she remembered the shattered wine glass shards mere inches from where she and Steve kneeled on the hardwood floor. Steve nearly chuckled aloud at how Helena could turn from absolutely sexy to adorable within seconds of each other and her tendency to be a bit of a worrier. 

“Helena, don’t even concern yourself with it. Let me clean it up and take care of anything you want.” Steve promised her, rubbing her back soothingly and watching the way Helena’s eyelids grew heavier underneath his touch. He would clean up the broken glass once he and Helena talked things out and he got her settled for the evening. It was his fault anyway, not Helena’s. 

“Stay here tonight?” Helena requested earnestly and flashed him her softest eyes, the vibrant hue of blue shimmering under the lights decorating the room. Steve felt his throat seize up underneath her tender gaze; oh, she was dangerous and he realized how wrapped around her finger he was. Steve stroked her cheek, and Helena melted against his touch, sighing contently. 

“Is that even a question? After everything I put you through, I won’t be leaving your side until you demand me to.” Steve mumbled, resting his forehead against Helena’s and teasing her with his proximity. The warmth of his breath tickled her full, pink lips, cheeks the color of the rose resting on the end table by the bookshelf, and her eyes closed—overwhelmed by the sensation that was Steve Rogers wrapping around her. 

“Why would I ever want that?” Helena pondered when leaned back in for another kiss, but she stopped herself before her lips connected with Steve’s. Her eyes sparkled in recognition when remembering an essential piece of information. “Oh, but Liberty! Will she be okay, staying home alone?” 

“I’ll ask Bucky to stay with her tonight.” Steve blinked, taken aback that she mentioned Liberty until he reminded himself that this was Helena, not Sharon. Helena loved Liberty as if she was her own and Liberty would probably defend Helena with her life, unlike Sharon, seeing as Liberty growled at her constantly and ruined her things (according to Sharon’s enraged debates about rehoming Liberty). 

“Are you sure? She can always come here,” Helena crinkled her nose in consideration, not wanting the poor pup to worry about Steve not coming home. Steve managed a small smile instead of a sigh. Helena was so worried about his dog, who would be okay with Bucky, that she was delaying the kiss he wanted to share with her. They had the rest of time, he knew that, but Steve wanted to feel fully alive the way he did when he was with her. 

“Helena, I am planning on spending the entire night making the last two years of me, being an idiot, up to you. If my dog was here, none of that would be happening.” Steve let a little chuckle out at Helena’s tendency for concern about every little detail, leaning back in to kiss her again. One thing was for sure: he enjoyed kissing Helena way more than he did Sharon. Their lips remained locked as Steve scooped Helena into his arms, bridal style, without breaking a sweat. Helena felt her heart swoon, although she was thoroughly exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster that was that evening. That was enough excitement for the night…or the next few months. Steve carried her off to her bedroom, ignoring the way that their phones buzzed with text messages from their friends, which would be unanswered for the next few hours. 


End file.
